Friday, April 28, 2006

Superfoods - summary of parts 1 to 10

Welcome to our health & self help blog.

In it we post health commentary & reviews of books, eBooks, & other things that improve or protect your health or which enable you to live longer, to be more prosperous, & to be more effective.

Today’s post: Friday, 4-28-2006

Superfoods & Honor Roll Foods, summary of parts 1 to 10

Here are the superfoods in the first 10 blogs in this series.:

1. Asparagus & Kiwifruit
2. Dark Chocolate & Oatmeal
3. Beans & Lentils; & Strawberries
4. Avocados & Tomatoes
5. Blueberries & Green Beans
6. Broccoli & Almonds
7. Wild caught Salmon & Sardines
8. Nonfat & 1 percent lowfat milk & Yogurt.
9. Green & black tea
10. Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Here are the fruit entries so far.: Kiwifruit; Strawberries; Blueberries;

Here are the vegetables or foods used as vegetables: Asparagus; Avocados; Tomatoes; Green Beans; Broccoli

Protein foods: Oatmeal; Beans & Lentils; Almonds; Wild caught Salmon; Sardines; Nonfat & 1 percent lowfat milk; & Yogurt

Health enhancing fats & oils: Avocados; Almonds; Wild caught Salmon; Sardines; & Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Most health enhancing drinks: Nonfat & 1 percent lowfat milk; & Green & black teas

Thursday, April 27, 2006

Superfoods part 10

Welcome to our health & self help blog.

In it we post health commentary & reviews of books, eBooks, & other things that improve or protect your health or which enable you to live longer, to be more prosperous, & to be more effective.

Today’s post: Thursday, 4-27-2006 Superfoods & Honor Roll Foods, part 10

Extra Virgin Olive Oil.

Simply put, extra virgin olive oil is a health-enhancing way to get fat in your diet that can make foods taste good & make it possible for you to sustain eating food that keeps you healthy & to avoid keeping or getting back excess fat.

1. It’s one of the most important key ingredients in the famous Mediterranean diet with its numerous, proven, health benefits.

2. And, several studies of eating to lose weight (excess bodyfat) & keep it off & successfully helping to lower high blood pressure through diet have found these eating styles actually work BETTER if extra virgin olive oil is included !!

(Since you don’t feel totally deprived of fat, feeling full, & good tasting foods that need fat to taste good, it becomes doable, even easy, to keep eating in a health-enhancing way. And, for the same reasons, it makes it doable & more likely that you’ll stop eating the fats & oils that harm your health.)

Like avocados & most nuts, extra virgin olive oil is mostly monosaturated fat.

And, unlike animal based saturated fat containing foods & foods that contain partially hydrogenated oils (transfats), extra virgin olive oil is good for your heart.

Eating extra virgin olive oil almost exclusively -- results in lower LDL cholesterol & tends to result in blood pressure levels low enough to support good health when it’s substituted for eating animal based saturated fat containing foods & foods that contain partially hydrogenated oils (transfats).

Unlike polyunsaturated vegetable oils, however, that doctors first tried tolower LDL levels, extra virgin olive oil also helps keep your beneficial HDL levels high while a diet of mostly polyunsaturated vegetable oils actually LOWERS your protective HDL.

And, recently doctors have found keeping HDL levels high is MORE heart protective than keeping LDL levels low.

Polyunsaturated vegetable oils also tend to produce inflammation & have bad health effects when heated -- possibly because that may generate transfats.

Extra virgin olive oil doesn’t tend to produce inflammation; & except for cooking a long time with very high heat, extra virgin olive oil is safe to cook with.

If olive oil has all these health benefits, why pay more for extra virgin olive oil?

The most important one is that extra virgin olive oil produces these health benefits better & is much higher in antioxidants that have other health benefits than lesser grades of olive oil do.

The other one is, it’s apparently more likely you’re getting 100 percent olive oil. I just found out recently that more olive oil is sold than is produced. And, some olive oils are 60 percent olive oil & 40 percent something else – cottonseed oil, corn oil, etc that are not desirable foods for everyday use.

This is apparently common enough & important enough to health conscious consumers, the better producers of olive oil will begin to put 100 percent olive oil on the labels.

Once that happens, only buy such oils.

Meanwhile, extra virgin olive oil is your best bet.

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Superfoods part 9

Welcome to our health & self help blog.

In it we post health commentary & reviews of books, eBooks, & other things that improve or protect your health or which enable you to live longer, to be more prosperous, & to be more effective.

Today’s post: Wednesday, 4-26-2006 Superfoods & Honor Roll Foods, part 9

Green & black tea.

Green tea has some health benefits that are greater or at least more written about than black tea. But it usually has less caffeine.

Black tea shares many of the health benefits of green tea; & it is usually higher in caffeine. In addition, black tea, besides being readily available as straight black tea, has flavored versions like Earl Grey & Chai tea that you either may like better or enjoy as a change of pace.

Both green & black tea are high in a flavonoid that one large study showed reduced the incidence of breast cancer. (Broccoli was also high in it.)

Green tea also directly caused prostate cancer cells to self-destruct in a test outside the body according to one study I saw reported.

And, both green & black tea are high in other antioxidants. Green tea is thought to have somewhat more.

(Green tea extract is available as a supplement also. So you can get many of its health benefits without drinking green tea.)

And, strangely enough, the fact that both green & black tea have less caffeine than coffee is an advantage in several ways.:

Both green & black tea help wake you up & keep you mentally sharp. But both do so without causing many of the problems coffee can often cause.

One of the most important was reported by Dr Dean Edell on his TV show. Since many people work by the theory if one is good, five or more is better & your body tends to acclimate to coffee over time, many people drink far more than one to three cups a day.

This produces side effects like feeling jittery or seriously overanxious in many people.

But even worse, Dr Edell said that more than two cups a day tends to be counterproductive & keep this over-consumption going.

What happens is that three or more cups of coffee a day, two or more for some people, keeps working after you go to sleep & keeps you from getting the full value from your sleep.

This makes it harder than it should be to get up the next day. And, you now need extra cups of coffee to compensate for this effect.

There are two ways to use green or black tea to avoid this effect.

1. You can simply switch to tea from coffee. (You can drink ten cups a day of tea at first to break in if you need to.)

This is the one to choose for the most health benefits or it is if you need or the caffeine; but get bad side effects from the much larger amounts in coffee.

For example, I drink 5 cups of tea a day on weekdays & only two on weekends with no problem.

If I did that with coffee, I’d be groggy & get a headache.

2. But if you like coffee & have no problems with it, the second way to use tea is to have your first cup of coffee of the day or that one & a cup in the early afternoon; & then drink tea when you want more of a pick up after that or something to drink on a break -- instead of coffee or soft drinks.

Either way, you then get health benefits from tea & can avoid the side effects of too much coffee like sleeping badly from too much caffeine.

In addition to helping you stay mentally sharp without overdoing it & possibly making you feel anxious, green tea is high in a substance called theanine which has a calming effect that does not slow you down or sedate you.

So if coffee makes you overanxious, green tea may be a great choice for you.

(Theanine is available as a supplement also. It’s one I’ve not tried personally, so I can’t recommend it from testing it. But you might find it helpful.)

In addition, green tea has a slight metabolism boosting effect that may help you lose &/or keep off a few pounds of bodyfat.

So, for all these reasons, green & black tea are definitely superfoods.

Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Superfoods part 8

Welcome to our health & self help blog.

In it we post health commentary & reviews of books, eBooks, & other things that improve or protect your health or which enable you to live longer, to be more prosperous, & to be more effective.

Today’s post: Tuesday, 4-25-2006 Superfoods & Honor Roll Foods, part 8

Nonfat & 1 percent lowfat milk.

Nonfat & 1 percent lowfat milk are honor roll foods for nutrition.:

Milk is high in bioavailable calcium that helps keep your bones strong & your blood pressure low enough for good health.

A recent study confirms that women who have a high intake of calcium have less bone fractures as they get older. (Weight bearing cardio like walking & strength training also do that.)

And, since adequate calcium & potassium from foods help keep your blood pressure low enough for good health, nonfat & 1 percent lowfat milk are included in the DASH diet that has tested as helping lower high blood pressure in people who need it.

Nonfat & 1 percent lowfat milk also have high quality protein & vitamin B12 which helps if you avoid eating meat & poultry as many health-oriented people do & as lacto- & lacto-ovo- vegetarians do.

Milk is also high in several other B vitamins & is particularly high in vitamin B2, riboflavin.

And, most milk is fortified with vitamin A & D. And recent research shows that many people today stay inside enough, they need the extra vitamin D. And the recent press repots suggest adequate vitamin D helps prevent cancer.

And, last but not least, nonfat & 1 percent lowfat milk deliver all these benefits without overdosing you with saturated fat as full fat or whole milk & 2 percent lowfat milk do.

This helps to protect you from cardiovascular disease since animal based saturated fat tends to sharply increase your dangerous LDL cholesterol levels.

Yogurt.

In SuperFoods Rx, Dr Steven Pratt includes yogurt.

If you eat it without added sugar or artificial sweeteners & either plain or in a blended drink with fruit or mix fresh fruit with it, it’s good to eat.

Eating small amounts regularly helps keep your immune system strong; & the bacteria in your digestive tract be health promoting ones instead of illness generating ones.

Nonfat yogurt has all the health benefits of nonfat & 1 percent lowfat milk except the fortification with vitamins A & D -- in addition to its immune & beneficial bacteria boosting effects.

Full fat yogurt is high in saturated fat; but it has all the other health benefits of nonfat yogurt & as an occasional treat, it tastes great.

(Unless your LDL cholesterol has been measured recently as 100 or less keep full fat yogurt to once or twice a month. If your LDL is 100 or less maybe eating full fat yogurt once or twice a week is OK.

Monday, April 24, 2006

Superfoods part 7

Welcome to our health & self help blog.

In it we post health commentary & reviews of books, eBooks, & other things that improve or protect your health or which enable you to live longer, to be more prosperous, & to be more effective.

Today’s post: Monday, 4-24-2006

Superfoods & Honor Roll Foods, part 7

Wild caught Salmon.

It’s becoming widely known that most people today take in too little Omega 3 oils & that wild caught salmon are high in Omega 3’s.

For people who don’t yet have severe cardiovascular disease, a diet high in Omega 3’s apparently reduces the incidence of fatal heart attacks. (Though one study reported to me suggests this may be less true for people who already have significant cardiovascular disease or heart failure.)

A robust intake of Omega 3’s apparently tends to prevent depression. It has reversed mild depression in many cases. And, when it does so, it can succeed in days where most anti-depression drugs take weeks to begin to work.

And, there are a surprising number of illnesses that are made less likely or improved by getting enough Omega 3’s.

There are purified fish oil capsules & DHA derived directly from the algae the fish get it from that you can take instead of eating salmon, however.

So why eat wild caught salmon?

When cooked properly it’s good to eat since it’s tender & has a very rich but mild taste. Some people like it just that way. And, there are many really great sauces that go well with salmon. Garlic works well with salmon; but to my taste, lemon juice by itself works much less well with salmon than it does with leaner fish like halibut.

And, a nice 6 to 8 ounce serving as much Omega 3’s as a weeks supply of Omega 3 supplements, unless you take them by the handful or several times a day. (So, for the same amount of Omega 3’s, wild caught salmon is not only more enjoyable to eat, it’s actually cheaper than the supplements.)

(Many health writers recommend eating wild caught salmon once or twice a week AND taking the Omega 3 supplements.)

And, there’s more. In addition to being high in Omega 3’s, salmon is low in saturated fat. So for a big dose of high quality protein that is OK for your heart health to eat, salmon is a superb choice to replace meats that are high in saturated fat & low in Omega 3’s.

In addition, salmon is high in CoQ10 which increases your energy level making the mitochondria in your cells more active -- & which is beneficial & protective to your heart. Plus, like Omega 3’s, it has many other health benefits.

Lastly, salmon is high in creatine, that many vegetarians or mostly vegetarians, tend to be low in & which speeds healing of muscle strains & increases the strength & speed of fast twitch muscle fibers. (Body builders & athletes take creatine as a supplement for those reasons.)

Important note: If salmon is NOT labeled as wild caught or Alaskan or both, there’s a 98 to 100 percent chance it’s farm raised.

And, at this writing, farmed salmon rank somewhere between -- eat only two or three times a year & avoid completely -- in how often health writers recommend eating them.

The reason is simple. They have pollutants wild caught salmon do not have or have only a few percent as much.

Wild caught salmon have no or very little mercury. Farm raised tend to be high in it.

The same is true of man-made organic pollutants like PCB’s, DDT, & dioxin.

And, two other reasons I just learned today are that:

1. Farmed salmon are very high per pound in their antibiotic content. (This can cause allergic reactions or cause the bacteria in your body to become antibiotic resistant.)

&

2. Since the farmed salmon are fed corn & soy meal passively, they are often too high in Omega 6 oils & have far less of the Omega 3’s many of us are eating salmon to get.

Virtually all restaurants serve only farm raised salmon. And, to the best of my knowledge, any canned salmon labeled as Atlantic salmon is farmed.

Wild caught salmon is available from Whole Food Market, at least it is in the San Francisco Bay Area.

And, as I understand it, all Alaskan canned salmon is wild caught. And, I myself buy canned salmon that not only is labeled as Alaskan but is also labeled as wild caught.

What if you want the benefits of wild caught salmon; but you want some variety or you want something a bit cheaper?

Sardines.

Sardines have all the benefits of wild caught salmon; & canned sardines are available in almost every grocery store. (And, as far as I know are all wild caught.)

And, they are often less expensive than canned salmon.

Their drawback is that the canned variety have a much stronger fishy taste & odor than fresh or canned wild caught salmon.

But if you are OK with that or use them in a salad with enough other strong flavors, they are a legitimate Superfood.

Friday, April 21, 2006

Superfoods part 6

Welcome to our health & self help blog. In it we post health commentary & reviews of books, eBooks, & other things that improve or protect your health or which enable you to live longer, to be more prosperous, & to be more effective.

Today’s post: Friday, 4-21-2006 Superfoods & Honor Roll Foods, part 6

Broccoli. It’s on almost all of the superfood lists ever made. We list why that’s so second, because -- not everyone likes it.

And, not only that, some people are genetically wired to taste broccoli as really harsh & astringent – much more so than the rest of the populations does.

So, if that’s you, there is good news. (For those who are already OK eating broccoli, you can skip to why it’s a superfood or read these tips for use as occasional dishes for variety or for or when you are cooking a dish with broccoli in it for company.)

It’s actually possible to stand to eat broccoli or even enjoy eating it with these techniques.:

1. If you cook it by steaming it or boiling it briefly in water, broccoli tastes less harsh. And, if you cook it that way, you get over 80 percent of all of its superfood benefits.

(Boiling broccoli or microwaving it -- removes most of many of the nutrients in it – leaving only 11 percent according to one study I saw.)

2. Many people like even harsher flavors than broccoli in spices used as accents to foods they like as a contrasting element.

Diced, lightly-cooked broccoli florets can be a nice accent in a salad that might otherwise be a bit too bland, for example.

And, since fats & oils minimize the flavor of broccoli somewhat, using ingredients in a salad like extra virgin olive oil, feta cheese chunks, olives filled with feta cheese on sundried tomatoes, walnuts, or avocado slices – can work quite well.

3. And, you can also bury the flavor of it with fatty or oily foods you like.

The Chinese stir-fry broccoli & garlic & oil together-- which works if you love garlic.

If you really like onions, you can sautee some onion slices & shrimp & precooked broccoli florets.

And, if you love cheese, as an occasional treat you can drown some precooked broccoli florets with melted cheddar cheese.

Here’s why broccoli is one of the top superfoods.:

It’s a green vegetable. (See the previous posts for why they are health enhancing.)

It’s high to very high in mixed carotenoids, folic acid, & several other antioxidants.

And, as a cruciferous vegetable, broccoli has several kinds of micronutrients each of which tends to prevent cancer.

Almonds. (Unfortunately, some people are allergic to tree nuts. If you are, they aren’t an OK food for you, let alone a superfood.)

For those who can eat them, nuts in general are superfoods. They are high in magnesium which is vital for your health & which many people get too little of in their food.

They are high in other vitamins & minerals including the several kinds of natural vitamin E.

And, most nuts, particularly almonds, are high in the amino acid Arginine, which protects your heart, helps keep your arteries flexible & responsive & your blood pressure in the desirable range. Arginine also helps keep blood flow to you sexual areas normal & robust as well. (It’s actually done some good for men with mild ED for example.)

In addition, nuts are filling because they are high in protein and fiber and fat – so much so that despite their fat content, one study found that people who added 500 calories a day of nuts to their diet, did NOT gain any weight. Apparently they were enough less hungry they ate that many calories elsewhere in their diet. As you might imagine, this can be a huge help if you are trying to lose weight & keep it off or you need to cut out eating fatty treats or fatty meats to protect your heart.

In fact, nuts are high in sterols which lower LDL cholesterol !!

And, the oils in nuts are mostly heart safe monosaturated oils.

Plus almonds are lowest in saturated fat of all the popularly eaten nuts at about 6 percent. (This is less than olive has !!)

In addition, Almonds are easily available most places & many people find they taste good.

One study even found that people who eat nuts regularly, lived several years longer than people who don’t. This was about seven years as I recall. You can certainly see why with all their health benefits. And, I suspect these people were in better health also.

If you like them, eating almonds is a great way to enjoy eating nuts & getting their health benefits.

(Here’s one caution about Almonds.: You get the most health benefits & in the safest way, if you eat them raw, blanched & slivered, or dry roasted.

The ones I saw at the store last that had been fried in oils had been fried in partially hydrogenated soybean oil, transfats, & then had WAY too much salt put on them.

Transfats help directly create heart disease & apparently may help produce type II diabetes. And, eating super salty foods more than very occasionally tends to produce or worsen high blood pressure.)

Thursday, April 20, 2006

Superfoods part 5

Welcome to our health & self help blog.

In it we post health commentary & reviews of books, eBooks, & other things that improve or protect your health or which enable you to live longer, to be more prosperous, & to be more effective.

Today’s post: Thursday, 4-20-2006 Superfoods & Honor Roll Foods, part 5

Blueberries. They qualify as superfoods in many ways.

They taste good fresh. They taste good when bought frozen & then thawed before eating. They add a lot of flavor when added to your breakfast cereal. Plus, they are a kind of berry that has virtually no seeds in it.

They are the highest in antioxidants of the berries that are easily available in most in most stores. One source says they are higher, in fact, than any other commercially available & commonly eaten fruit or vegetable.

And, like all berries they are high in vitamin C.

Like red wine & concord grape juice, they are high is resveratrol which is thought to contribute to good heart health.

They are high in the flavonoids called anthocyanidins, which give blueberries and grapes their dark blue and purple color.

And, anthocynadins apparently work directly with vitamin C & protein in your body to keep your arteries healthy by preventing tears in their surfaces & by keeping your arteries flexible & responsive.

Does this have health benefits? Oh yes !!

I saw a study once that said that people who eat blueberries regularly have far fewer strokes than people who don’t.

(I suspect the improvement in artery integrity eating blueberries causes helps prevent the kind of strokes that result from leaky blood vessels in the brain. And, the improved flexibility in the flexibility & responsiveness of the blood vessels helps prevent the high blood pressure that helps cause all strokes.)

But the most amazing finding is that eating blueberries regularly, helps prevent age-related memory loss & failing thinking skills in older people. In fact, the study found older people who already had these problems to some degree who added eating blueberries to their diet significantly improved their memory & thinking skills.

Green Beans. They are a decent green vegetable, like asparagus, with some nutrition but it’s not quite an honor roll food for vitamins & minerals.

So, why include them? Because they are a green vegetable !!

Green beans are available almost everywhere either canned or fresh or frozen.. Plus some people really like them.

One of the ways I’ve liked them is when heated in water with blanched almond slices.

The key point is that virtually all green vegetables are superfoods.

There are many opinions & versions of health enhancing & protecting styles of eating. But almost all of them include green vegetables. And, few people today get more than a quarter of the amount they should eat. So those besides greens that some people like & make a good change of pace from salad greens or a good addition to salads are great superfoods.

Another strong reason to include virtually all the green & nonstarchy vegetables, including green beans is that easily 90 percent of us don’t now eat enough of them for good health.

The other reason to include green vegetables is that you’ll be leaner & less fat without much effort by eating them or more of them. It’s virtually impossible to be leaner & less fat & stay that way by always eating less than you are hungry for. But it’s actually quite doable to eat MORE green vegetables.

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Superfoods part 4

Welcome to our health & self help blog. In it we post health commentary & reviews of books, eBooks, & other things that improve or protect your health or which enable you to live longer, to be more prosperous, & to be more effective.

Today’s post:

Wednesday, 4-19-2006 Superfoods & Honor Roll Foods, part 4

Avocados.

Recent studies show that if you add some foods with health supporting or “good” fats to what you eat & you eat a health-enhancing diet otherwise, you actually get BETTER blood pressure control & are MORE likely to lose excess fat & keep it off.

Avocados are a great way to do that.

Avocados are high in fat; but almost all of it is monosaturated fat, which helps lower bad, LDL, cholesterol & does so without lowering HDL or good cholesterol.

And, they are the number one honor roll plant food for nutrition.

From vitamin A to C to E & the many minerals they contain, they are so high in so many nutrients, you could almost live on nothing else or substitute them for your daily vitamin & mineral supplement.

And, either straight or as guacamole, they are good to eat & great hunger satisfiers.

Tomatoes. They almost qualify as superfoods twice.

*When eaten in quarters or slices in salads or on sandwiches, they add a nice taste & cold or cool wet, mouthfeel with a very slight amount of crunch.

And, when eaten this way, you get fiber, vitamin C, some vitamin A; & the yellow fluid that surrounds the seeds is protective for your heart.

Not bad !!

**Surprisingly, their strongest claim to superfood status though, is when they are cooked &/or pureed, particularly when they are combined with extra virgin olive oil.

Cooking makes the lycopene in the tomatoes most bioavailable.

And, the carotenoid, lycopene, apparently protects against cancers & helps keep your heart healthy.

This has turned up in studies of the incidence of prostate cancer. Men who eat the most cooked tomato foods get the least while men who eat little or none get prostate cancer much more often. (I’ve not seen studies yet to show it; but I suspect it also protects women against ovarian & breast cancers.)

In addition, eating cooked tomatoes with extra virgin olive oil adds to the bioavailability of the lycopene.

So, not only are many Italian foods health-enhancing by fitting the Mediterranean diet, the tomato & pasta sauces are actually good for you.

This is one of the ways that eating healthy can be enjoyable to do & easy to keep doing.

(Ketchup apparently works; but the high fructose corn syrup in most of the commercial versions today is NOT good for you.

This is unfortunate if you like the stuff; but there are many wonderful tasting cooked tomato sauces to choose from instead.)

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Superfoods part 3

Welcome to our health & self help blog.

In it we post health commentary & reviews of books, eBooks, & other things that improve or protect your health or which enable you to live longer, to be more prosperous, & to be more effective.

Today’s post: Tuesday, 4-18-2006

Superfoods & Honor Roll Foods, part 3

Beans & Lentils. They all are high in protein for plant foods. (If you eat them with a glass of nonfat or 1% lowfat milk or with brown rice or whole eggs, they can easily substitute for meat dishes protein-wise.)

They all are high in soluble fiber which helps keep your bad cholesterol, LDL, under control. Plus, when they are also eaten instead of fatty meats, they do double duty in keeping your LDL cholesterol low.

They are low in their glycemic index. So they help keep your blood sugar down in the healthy range & your body’s insulin response working properly, which can save you from type II diabetes or make it better.

They are surprisingly high in antioxidants. And, because their total fiber is high, they keep you from being constipated. They also are a good source of many minerals, particularly magnesium, which helps keep your blood pressure down in the desirable range; is good for your heart; & even helps keep your bones strong.

(Lentils are high in so many nutrients besides having all the other benefits of beans, they are an honor roll food. And, their glycemic index is unusually low. Small wonder they’ve been a staple food in India for thousands of years !!)

And, all beans are astoundingly cheap. If you make them a staple food & cook them at home, you can eat really well.

Strawberries. Like all berries, they are high in vitamin C, fiber, & micronutrients. And, their glycemic index is reasonably low.

But many people enjoy them so much, they are a great health-enhancing treat food or a dessert that won’t make you fat.

Try them served chilled on a hot day. Or, any other day you like !!

And, a great healthful dessert treat is to sort them into the best looking ones & the less good looking ones; & then blend the less good looking ones with 1% lowfat milk & a small amount of brown sugar & pour the blended mixture over the good looking ones.

Or, if you can’t have the sugar, try cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice instead. And, if you can, try both the brown sugar & cinnamon, etc.

So, between their direct benefits & substituting for at least some for less health enhancing treat foods, strawberries are definitely a superfood.

Monday, April 17, 2006

Superfoods & Honor Roll Foods, part 2

Welcome to our health & self help blog.

In it we post health commentary & reviews of books, eBooks, & other things that improve or protect your health or which enable you to live longer, to be more prosperous, & to be more effective.

Today’s post: Monday, 4-17-2006

If a food is super nutritious or promotes or protects your health, it belongs on the list of Superfoods & Honor Roll Foods.

Here are two more.:

Dark Chocolate. It’s beginning to be widely reported that dark chocolate is high in antioxidants & that eating it by itself as a snack actually reduces high blood pressure & improves the health of your blood vessels.

Unfortunately, eating it with milk seems to cancel the health effects by binding to its antioxidants in some way. So milk chocolate candy bars & chocolate milk, while fun taste treats, don’t have the health benefits of dark chocolate eaten by itself.

Secondly, it is possible to eat enough of it as a snack to gain undesirable fat weight. (I’ve lost the 6 pounds I gained last December doing exactly that.)

The good news is that only ONE of the bite-sized candy bars will produce the health effect -- as will about a quarter of one of the full sized or larger ones. And, unless you are exercising for several hours a day each day, one a day is probably the limit without eating it producing an unplanned weight gain.

(An article I saw recently found that the Newman’s Own Dark Chocolate bars had the highest level of antioxidants of the brands they tested.

Also, make sure to check the label of any candy bars you buy to be sure they do NOT contain any partially hydrogenated oil or list any transfat content above 0. Until recently, some of the more popular ones have contained partially hydrogenated oil & said so on the label. Such transfats are worse for you than the dark chocolate is good !!

A good way to get a very solid chocolate experience with NO added sugar is to add two heaping spoonfuls of unsweetened cocoa to a cup of hot water.

(I’ve found that if you put the cocoa in the middle & very carefully swish it around for a bit, you can get the spoon in between the cocoa lump & the side of the cup. Once you do that, it’s possible to stir vigorously until the cocoa dissolves without getting a glob on the spoon that doesn’t mix as well.)

Oatmeal. If you fix it & get used to eating it with no added salt or sugar, it’s very good for you.

In particular, the soluble fiber in it has been shown to help reduce the level of undesirable LDL cholesterol. Plus, it is reasonably high in protein & B vitamins.

And, if you eat it with a glass of nonfat or 1 % fat milk for breakfast, you get enough protein to substitute for the ham & eggs you might have otherwise eaten, which cuts your LDL cholesterol even more.

Friday, April 14, 2006

IE’s health & self help blog

Welcome to our health & self help blog.

In it we post health commentary & reviews of books, eBooks, & other things that improve or protect your health or which enable you to live longer, to be more prosperous, & to be more effective.

Today’s post: Friday, 4-14-2006

Superfoods & Honor Roll Foods

If a food is super nutritious or promotes or protects your health, it belongs on the list of Superfoods & Honor Roll Foods.

Here are two of the ones that are less often found in the media reports on them.:

Asparagus. It’s a decent green vegetable with some nutrition but it’s not quite an honor roll food for vitamins & minerals. So, why include it? Because it’s a green vegetable !! And, it’s a bit different & less eaten than many, so it makes an interesting change of pace. Plus some people really like them.

The key point is that virtually all green vegetables are superfoods.

There are many opinions & versions of health enhancing & protecting styles of eating. But almost all of them include green vegetables. And, few people today get more than a quarter of the amount they should eat. So those besides greens that some people like & make a good change of pace from salad green or a good addition are great superfoods.

And, asparagus qualifies.

The other reason to include green vegetables is that you’ll be leaner & less fat without much effort by eating them or more of them. It’s virtually impossible to be leaner & less fat & stay that way by always eating less than you are hungry for. But it’s actually quite doable to eat MORE green vegetables.

Kiwi Fruit. Like many fruits they’re high in vitamin C. And, though they are somewhat less eaten than the more common kinds of fruit, they are really good. They have enough water to be a great snack when served chilled on a hot day, for example. And, a recent article I read said they have as much potassium as a banana & more fiber than a bowl of bran flakes.

So, any food that’s an honor roll food for its nutrition that also tastes good is a superfood. And, Kiwifruit definitely qualify.

More on supefoods next week.